Yeah, this will work... From the Billings News (MT):
Cats have been the targets of oppressive legislation across the country. Several cities have enacted cat leash laws. Several states, including neighboring North Dakota, have declared open season on feral cats. Regions of Australia have banned cats altogether.Feral cats have never been that big of a problem in Montana. When Fluffy or Muffy ventures too far from the settlements it becomes coyote fodder.
Champions of feline freedom might block the current attempt to ban cats from our city’s backyards and alleys, but sooner or later we will have a cat leash law. Dog leash laws followed the same track 30 or 40 years ago when animal control ordinances put an end to the free range Rex and Rover.
Cat leash law advocates offer two basic arguments: What goes into one end of a cat and what comes out the other.
Since cats cannot be fenced, they make it their business to do their business in the neighbors’ yard. They seem especially fond of children’s sandboxes and well tilled flowerbeds.
What goes into a cat is all too often wearing feathers. The bad news is roughly 20,000 cats in Billings killing an average of five birds apiece. That’s 100,000 birds per annum.
I should point out though that my cats are all "indoor" cats. I just couldn't face coming home to find one lying by the curb -- a victim of a car or larger animal.
A tractor trailer carrying 42,000 lbs. of dog food overturned Thursday about 1:50 p.m. on Route B near St. Thomas.Chris Champlain, 33 Henley, was driving the truck from the Diamond Dog Food factory in Meta. According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the accident occurred when Champlain crossed the centerline, overcorrected, and ran off the right side of the highway before overturning.
A veterinarian will perform a radical treatment on a rescued dog that he hopes will soon have a new home.The 6-month-old German shepherd was rescued five months ago after his owner was committed to a facility and could no longer take care of him. The puppy had an ear infection that spread into his sinuses, leaving him with gaping wounds in his face.
The dog will undergo a procedure in which his face will literally be peeled back so that a veterinarian will be able to treat the infection. The procedure costs $4,000, and the clinic is hoping those in the community will help defray the cost.
Those taking care of the dog they call "Bear" hope that once he is healthy, someone will give him a new home.
WYMAN TOWNSHIP, Maine - A 90-year-old woman grabbed a bobcat by the tail to free her beloved pet cat from the wildcat's mouth. Mildred Luce, who lives alone, said the action began one recent day when she looked outside her window and saw the bobcat lying on its side with the head of her 20-year-old cat, Smudge, in its mouth.Luce ran out the door, grabbed an aluminum snow shovel and pushed it down on the bobcat's neck. But it held on tight.
"Then I took hold of its head with my hand and pulled on its tail, and Smudge popped out," she said.
Smudge hightailed into the house with the bobcat hot on her heels. Once inside, the wildcat calmed down and appeared more bewildered than aggressive, Luce said, wandering from room to room before walking into the bathroom.
A neighbor whom Luce had called for help secured the door until Warden Mark Rollins arrived and snared the animal as it hid behind a shower curtain.
Okay, not exactly a "pet story" but from Reuters:
A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them -- a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday.
"Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.
There comes that time when you have to decide to put your beloved pet to sleep. You've read about my experiences here and at my other blog. Francis W. Porretto has a heart-wrenching post about reaching that point with his dog, Bruno. My sympathies go out to him and my prayers go out to Bruno in heaven.
The pain will slowly pass and then (as I've done myself) you head down to the local animal shelter and take home a new bundle of love just waiting to give you new experiences and joy.
Once the sultry silver-screen star of numerous movies and married to the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall has given up on men and only needs the love of a good dog. From Contact Music:
Legendary actress LAUREN BACALL has no need for a relationship with a man,because she's so happy living with her dog SOPHIE - who she refers to her as "my partner".The single 80-year-old, who was once married to screen legend HUMPHREY BOGART and dated FRANK SINATRA, spends all of her time with the Papillon pooch.
Bacall, star of classics including THE BIG SLEEP and KEY LARGO, says, "I've lived alone for 25 years now and most of the time I like it a lot.
"Sophie is very intelligent, sweet and gives me unconditional love - you could never find a man like that! I am very happy to wake up to find her on my chest, licking my face."
I don't subscribe to any of the "organized religions" but I do believe there is something, someone working in our interests. From San Diego.Com:
Their fourth day on a desolate, rain-soaked trail through the Mojave Desert between Needles and Barstow, John and Denise Vissat veered their Jeep off their intended route. In retrospect, John thinks the unplanned detour to find drier terrain was fate. For suddenly, after not seeing anyone for hours, they came across a lost dog trailing a leather leash.The black Lab, caked in dirt, was several miles from the nearest highway. She wolfed down water and about four days of their dog's food supply. Then John, general manager of Hornblower Cruises in downtown San Diego, chipped the mud away from her collar and uncovered tags identifying the Labrador as a guide dog. There was a phone number and a microchip ID.
Meanwhile, Ronnie Phillips, at the Woodland Hills home of her son, was recuperating from an auto accident that had broken her pelvis and left her imprisoned in her collapsed Saturn SUV. Accompanied by her golden retriever, Remington, and black Lab, Orli, she had been driving northeast on I-15 to her home in Las Vegas on March 16 when she felt a bump, swerved, overcorrected and lost control of the SUV. It careened through a guardrail and rolled over. Phillips later was pried out of the wreckage and taken by helicopter to a hospital in Colton. A Highway Patrol officer dropped off the uninjured golden retriever at the Barstow Humane Society for family members. But the Lab that Phillips initially trained as a guide dog was nowhere to be found.
The Highway Patrol searched for Orli. The tow truck driver searched for her. Phillips' daughter returned the next day and scoured the area, leaving word with local vets. They had no idea how badly injured the dog had been in the crash, or if she was even still alive.
For days, Phillips called her home answering machine. "After about a week, I gave up hope," she said. "I figured if Orli had survived the accident, the coyotes had gotten to her."
Last Sunday evening, however, nearly three weeks after the crash, the good-news message was there. The Vissats had found Orli. Phillips called them sobbing. Was her dog dead? she asked. "No, she's doing great," came the reply. "I was hysterical. It was unbelievable. A miracle," Phillips says. Her son drove to San Diego the next day, and Orli now is back at home with her pal, Remington. She's 12 pounds thinner, but otherwise a very lucky pooch.
"It's like you lose a child, and your child comes home . . . She was a part of the family," Phillips says. "Now she has godparents."
Anyway, just try to convince me that Orli didn't have someone watching over him to reunite him with loved ones. God works in more mysterious ways than I can fathom but this is a great story of one terrific dog.
Named the world's smallest dog in 1999, a Chihuahua just 15 cm (six inches) tall, died of natural causes and not medical malpractice as its owner claimed, a Czech court ruled Thursday.CTK news agency said the court in the eastern city of Olomouc dismissed a one million crown ($43,100) damages claim by the dog's owner against a veterinarian who, she said, gave her pet an injection that left it paralyzed.
The Chihuahua, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest dog in 1999, had to be put down in 2000. It was not clear how old the dog was.
The owner claimed the damages as a loss of earnings for the deals that had been set up for the dog, called Ondra.
The judge, citing expert testimony, ruled that death was the result of a birth defect, hydrocephalus, or water in the head.
A good decision from the Lawrence, Kansas city officials comes to us via the Lawrence Journal-World:
Lawrence Journal-World Photo
Charlie, a 6-month-old bantam rooster, often helps Lawrence resident Karon Johnson get through bad days.And there have been more than a few bad days. About a year and a half ago, because of a serious heart condition, one of her legs was amputated. Shortly thereafter, doctors discovered Johnson had breast cancer and she underwent a mastectomy.
Charlie, the colorfully plumed pet, brightens her dark days by reminding her of her childhood on a Missouri chicken farm.
"I had quite a bit of depression coming out of all of this, but Charlie has had a soothing effect on me," Johnson said. "He's kind of like a dog that gets you up every morning and nudges you along."
But city animal regulations almost forced Johnson to figure out how to get by without her companion.
[...]
Johnson sent Charlie to a friend's rural Lawrence farm, while city officials sorted out the regulations. Friday, City Manager Mike Wildgen delivered Johnson the news that she had hoped for: Charlie could stay.
"It is a bird in the house, and we just view it as a bird in the house," Wildgen said. "It's not unlike people having a parrot in their house. We haven't had a complaint on it either.
This is another example of how animals can bring comfort to humans going through tough times.
Time Magazine has an article up about Fritz the Cat creator Robert Crumb.
Don't know why I should mention that but there it is...
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The ambassador to the tiny eastern European country of Latvia has been sued for failing to restrain a dog at her home in Louisville.Catherine Bailey and her husband, Irv, are accused in the suit of violating a settlement in which they agreed to remove their pit bull from their home on Longview Avenue.
The suit was filed in Jefferson Circuit Court by Eric J. Haner, a lawyer who contends the dog has been seen on two occasions at the Baileys' home since Jan. 30 - the date they were supposed to get rid of the dog. Haner is asking that the dog be euthanized.
Bailey could not be reached at the U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia. She was appointed ambassador by President Bush and sworn in Jan. 13.
But an attorney for the couple called the suit a "case of mistaken identity." Christina Norris said the dog identified in the suit is actually an English bulldog owned by a housekeeper.
"It is not the dog in question," Norris said.
Haner claims that the pit bull attacked his pug, Bobbie, and mauled a schnauzer owned by George Stinson, a friend of Haner's who also lives on the street.
Haner said in the suit that the Baileys violated a local dangerous dog ordinance. Haner and the Baileys signed an agreement Jan. 28 in which he agreed not to sue if they agreed to permanently relinquish "care, custody and control" of the dog by midnight two days later.
The couple agreed to have the dog destroyed if it was kept there after that date.
Maybe it's just better if you head to Classical Values to read this...